The Mysterious Round Towers of Ireland

Large scale Land fertility and Elemental magic?

Sep 19, 2024

Found across Ireland are the iconic and rather mysterious round towers. Many of them stand firm amidst the ruins of 7-10^th century monasteries. Based on this, the accepted story given at many of the sites is that they were built by the Irish monks of the early Celtic churches. Others debate there is little real evidence to support this, that the monasteries and churches were built on older sites and that the round towers may have already been there. The ‘historical’ tourist information tells us that the doors were built high above the ground so that the monks could haul up a ladder and protect themselves from Viking raiders. Standing beneath one of these towers and gazing up, this seems highly unlikely to me – why would you trap yourself in a little tower like this with no resources? Nonetheless that’s the story being told.

Coming across several round towers in our travels around Ireland, I was continually reminded of the concept of them being paramagnetic towers used to enhance fertility of the land.

Land fertility rites are strong and pervasive in the mythic history of Ireland. The King marrying the land goddess an integral part of land health. Famine - an equally pervading part of Irish history - being one of the results of this sacred union (between human and land, King and country) not being honoured in some way. I’ve written on this elsewhere so won’t cover it in here, but its apparent enough that it doesn’t seem unlikely that they would have employed whatever knowledge and measures they had to support fertile abundance. It’s very possible they’re not simply giant phallic symbols or watchtowers, but have a much more fascinating function…

Paramagnetism

A great video on the history, research and uses of paramagnetism can be found here. In short, paramagnetic towers, when placed correctly on stable energetic places have been seen to increase harvest, decrease plagues and pests, enhance soil fertility and generally improve health and peace of the surrounding land for as far as a 32km circumference. It’s key to note that when placed incorrectly they can do the opposite.

All of the round towers of Ireland are built of paramagnetic rock and are apparently, uniformly consisting of two walls filled in between with rubble. When building smaller paramagnetic towers (like these small ones we have in the garden (picture below) – you fill them with a paramagnetic gravel.

At heights of 30 metres or so, the round towers would have been paramagnetic towers of great size, and one would think, with a very large sphere of influence.

paramagnetic wizards — paramagnetic garden wizards

The first round tower we came across was at the monastery ruins of Clonmacnoise, which sits on a bend of the river Shannon as well as on the ancient trackway that ran East-West across Ireland – An Sli Mor. With the river being a means of past travel and transport, this made Clonmacnoise a busy crossroads in the centre of Ireland. It’s a peaceful and serene place. There are two round towers – one with its cap still on, the other missing from a lightning strike. Do they mark energetic points?

We know from all the dowsing being done nowadays that churches and monasteries were so often built atop ancient sacred sites, of which many are on earth energy lines and nodes. Sacred waters or springs were often an aspect of these sacred sites, and many churches house holy wells to this day.

But what is most interesting at Clonmacnoise, is that between them, as if marking a centre to which these two round towers mark out two of the directions (were there once four?), is the remains of St. Ciaran’s Chapel or temple. The legend goes that people would come to take a clod of soil from beneath St. Ciaran’s chapel and scatter it on their own lands to ensure fertile crops and livestock. So much so, that the chapel’s foundations became unstable and are visibly sinking.

St. Ciaran’s chapel visibly sinking, Clonmacnoise

Here we have a central chapel between two possibly paramagnetic round towers that ensure peace, flourishment and soil fertility; and people coming to ritually take some and scatter it on their own lands. A homeopathic dose of pre-charged soil maybe? If you watch the paramagnetic video, you’ll hear him explain that scattering some of the paramagnetic rubble across the land is part of the process – with a certain amount required per hectare.

So did it work?

Clonmacnoise monastic site was founded by St. Ciaran in 544CE. While he died only seven months later of the plague, Clonmacnoise went on to become a very prosperous, well known and acclaimed religious university. It’s decline thought to be mainly due to the growth of a nearby town in the 12^th century, or was it that the rite of spreading the gravel was no longer happening?

Kildare round tower from the flame enclosure

A couple of days later, we were at Kildare church, the ancient site of St. Brigid, where another round tower stands in the corner of the church grounds. Apparently the only one you can still climb, however, it was covered in scaffolding and very much closed when we visited. Just nearby, several metres away, is a small sunken enclosure said to be where St. Brigid’s flame was kept alight for centuries.

Now there’s a long story associated with this beautiful perpetual flame and I include only a tiny thread of that here (more in my upcoming book!)

For centuries, the perpetual flame of ancient Bride was kept burning at Kildare. Legend says that the flame was tended round the clock by 19 maidens - priestesses of Bride. Bride was so strong in the pagan culture, rather than try and blot her out, Christianity took her on as St. Brigid, whose story maintains many of the original elements of Bride. St. Brigid became one of the fire keepers tending Bride’s eternal flame and eventually in 480CE, she founded a monastery on the flame site - Kildare (Cill Dara means church of the oak).

As I sat in the sunken area where the flame burned for centuries (it was rekindled recently and is held nearby in a centre that is closed on Sunday mornings when we were there!), I am again struck by the position of the round tower, at a similar distance away as St. Ciaran’s chapel is to the round towers at Clonmacnoise. My sense is that the river Shannon played a key part in the magic at Clonmacnoise, and while there is no water in the immediate vicinity at Kildare (though Bride’s sacred well is not too far away) there was a perpetual flame….

I consider agni hotra, the Indian fire ceremony that purifies the land and how the oldest round towers are said to have come from the East - places like India, and today there are pagodas in various countries that may have similar functions.

I ponder the prospect that whatever was happening here was a magnified form of earth health, though this time using fire rather than water.

Other prominent round towers we visited were at Glendalough and Cashel – both highly significant and prosperous sites. Glendalough sits in the forest with gushing rivers all around, and Cashel high on a rocky hillcrop - earth and stone…

Glendalough and Rock of Cashel round towers

One further round tower we stumbled across accidently was in the little village of Aughagower, which means field of the spring. It lies five miles east of the sacred mountain now known as Croagh Patrick. The round tower stands in the centre of a graveyard, without its cap (again purportedly struck off by lightning). On one side a healthy brook runs through the town. On the other two holy wells, both dry. This was the only round tower we were able to go inside as the door was at ground level. While the village is now a quiet, peaceful place, in its heyday – and time of the round tower, it was apparently a very influential parish and on the pilgrimage route to Croagh Patrick.

Aughagower round tower and one of the dry wells in front

While I have no definitive answers, each round tower I visited brought little inklings of large scale land fertility into the forefront of my being - through homeopathic, elemental and biodynamic magic. A practical sacred marriage with the land, cocreation with the elements for wellbeing.

Have you visited any? What are your thoughts and feelings?

Mythic Living

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